Wild Weather Hits AWS, Banks

The wild weather that swept across coastal New South Wales over the weekend – and is now extending its fury into Tasmania and Victoria – saw Amazon Web Services’ Australian operation plagued by a number of outages on Sunday.

The weather-based problems also knocked banks, entertainment platforms and other digital services offline from about 4pm on Sunday, with Westpac, Commonwealth Bank and ME Bank customers reported being unable to make card transactions.

The banks said this was unrelated to the AWS problems. But video streaming service Stan, co-owned by Fairfax Media and Channel Nine, was also hit, due to what it said was a power outage within AWS.

Other AWS Australian clients including Domino’s Pizza, Foxtel and Domain were said to have been left without Web sites or key systems for hours. AWS said most services had been restored by 9.30pm on Sunday.